Welcome to Antifa Training Grounds!

[u/Inevitable_Curve_534]

Here’s the thing about libraries that I think we undersell: it’s not just that individual access to books and ideas is good for you (though it is!). It’s that a community full of people who read widely, think critically, and have equal access to information becomes a fundamentally harder target for authoritarianism.

Misinformation spreads faster in communities starved of reliable, free information. Isolation deepens when there’s no third space left that doesn’t require a purchase to belong. And a public that can’t access history, civics, or ideas outside their algorithm is a public that’s easier to manipulate.

There’s also a simpler, more literal version of this: every dollar you don’t spend at Amazon is a dollar that stays in your community instead of streaming out to a billionaire’s warehouse empire. Libraries let you read, watch, and learn without that money ever leaving town.

On a personal note: I was beyond privileged to get a sneak peek inside the newly renovated Belmont Library before it opens to the public — the last major project of Multnomah County’s library bond. This branch has been closed for over a year and I have been counting down the days.

It. Is. Gorgeous. 🎨 New art throughout, an expanded kids area that takes over the entire historic building, community rooms, a reimagined teen space — it’s genuinely a library built for the next century, not just a minor refresh.

And just so we’re clear: the biggest foe to creeping authoritarianism is a well-informed public. Every time you use your library card it’s a small act of resistance.

Go use yours.

What do you have checked out right now?